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3 reasons for EDI integration with Shopify

3 reasons for EDI integration with Shopify

This article was taken from our blog, published on our EDI2XML platform.

Shopping cart Icon on smart phone screen over blur mall

Many times, when I meet business owners and executives, the same question comes up during the discussion: why do companies operating eCommerce stores on Shopify or Magento need to have EDI integration? I decided to publish this post, and explain my points, by identifying the top (3) reasons why businesses running on Shopify, need to comply and integrate with EDI.

What is Shopify?

In a quick description, Shopify is one of the leading Canadian eCommerce platforms offered to clients based on monthly subscription fee, where companies and individuals can subscribe, put up their own items on the eCommerce platform, and start selling to the public. For more information about Shopify, you can visit their website, it has tons of information about how things are done.

Who uses Shopify?

Individuals or companies of all sizes, who want to sell products online to their clients and B2C consumers, are mostly the users of a platform such as Shopify. With less than 100 $ a month, they can start selling products and ship it to their clients.

A word about Drop-Shipping

One important thing to emphasize here is that with the emergence of the online retail and eCommerce over the internet, companies selling products online on platforms such as Shopify, are not necessarily carrying inventory of the products they are selling.

They do receive the order from the consumer online into the Shopify platform (or store), and than they transfer this order to the manufacturing business partner(s) for shipping and delivery, while “white labelling” the packaging delivery. This concept is called “Drop-Ship” (or Drop shipping) in the retail and eCommerce world. The store owner will receive the order from the consumer, who gets paid for the merchandise upfront. The Store owner forward the order to the maker for shipment and direct delivery to the consumer.

What EDI has to do in this context of eCommerce?

As a reminder about EDI (Electronic Data Interchange), it is a set of standards and processes to exchange documents of business nature electronically between business partners. What I mean by business documents is Purchase Order, Invoice. This data exchange can happen in both direction (in and out).

In the context of online sales over the internet on a platform such as Shopify and drop-shipping orders, the EDI comes into play for several reasons:

  • Most manufacturing an major distribution will require a system-to-system integration through some sort of EDI
  • Shipping companies require also integration via EDI
  • Consumer today is very well educated and require to be informed on the status of their orders at every step of the way during the shipping process.

As you notice, all the above requires system-to-system integration between so many heterogenous systems and platforms. All major companies and retailers are well equipped with EDI platforms and standards that they have been investing in developing for years now, so it is the right moment for them to pay off all their investments.

Top (3) reasons why you need EDI integration with Shopify

As you might have noticed from the previous sections, the reasons are very obvious, to have an EDI integration with your Shopify store:

  • If you are in the Drop-Ship business and you are selling online, chances are that your suppliers will impose on you to go on EDI.

  • When you are selling online on Shopify, and you have a high volume of clients, that require to be informed of their orders at any given moment, this is another reason why you need to have EID integrated with your Shopify store

  • In case you are dealing with shipping companies (FedEx, Purolator, UPS…) and you have high volume of shipments daily, you need to integrate your systems and Shopify with EDI

The above are the main reasons for such a need, still more reasons are out there, just wanted to share the most important ones.

But can we integrate Shopify with EDI?

Certainly, it is feasible, we do this every day. With the right team of integrators, that have years of expertise in integrating EDI to any system, there is no going wrong.

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All you need to know about EDI2XML translation service

documentIt’s no secret that our EDI2XML team enjoys helping companies increase efficiency, improve partner relationships, speed the flow of goods to customers and improve shipping accuracy by enabling them to easily exchange documents electronically between trading partners. (“EDI communication advantages”).

But how do they do this, and for how much? We want our customers to fully understand the processes involved in our EDI translation service and all the costs involved. It’s all about providing a service to businesses so that they benefit fully t and don’t have to cause them any more problems, queries or headaches. So let’s start at the beginning;

What is EDI2XML as a service and how does it work?

This EDI service is beneficial for companies that don’t have an in-house IT or EDI team, or are planning to downsize their IT department. This service enables our team of EDI experts to act as an intermediary between your company and your trading partners (Suppliers). First we set you up to start exchanging with your associates, then once everything is configured and ready to go, you’ll be able to send and receive EDI documents automatically with minimal human involvement.

EDI configuration

The initial configuration for trading partners and the EDI documents to be exchanged include the following:

  • Analyze EDI project requirements and needs
  • Build and establish connectivity between your platform and ours
  • Define the folder structures to be transferred and build the translation engine
  • Build the engine that will return all incoming documents from the business partner and convert them into your predefined preferred format
  • Setting up accounts for all business partners on our platform
  • Ensure proper installation by communicating with all business partners
  • Configuration of partner document specifications
  • Comprehensive data and connectivity testing

In our experience, this phase usually takes between 1 and 3 weeks, depending on the customer’s requirements. Usually the follow-up, the comings and goings, the tests with business partners and any integration requirements can take longer. (for example, if the job requires a lot of custom work).

The setup usually consists of a one-off fee, based on the time and effort involved.

Monthly communication service

Once everything has been set up correctly, documents can begin to be transferred. All incoming files (such as purchase orders) will be converted to the required file format and deposited on your FTP site (or integrated directly into your management system), and all outgoing files (ASNs and invoices) will be converted to EDI format and sent to Le partenaire commercial. For this service, there is a monthly fee comprising the total monthly volume transferred (based on the total number of Kilo characters) and our EDI2XML mailbox.

Nowadays, being EDI compliant is a necessity, and fortunately EDI is no longer complex, time-consuming and costly. The EDI2XML translation service is fast, easy and affordable, and perfect for the needs of your SME.

For more information on our EDI translation service, read our blog entitled “Understanding EDI as a service”, which you can find on the company’s blog page.

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EDI, EDI, EDI…Why its demand has drastically increased

EDI Communication is in high demand right now. Many companies are quickly realizing how beneficial it is to trade important documents with their suppliers, retailers or business partners via electronic means. Others are receiving direct instructions from their partners to begin using EDI in order to continue doing business with them. Basically, some companies aren’t getting the choice and others are taking proactive steps to ensure they are ahead of the game so that they are as efficient as possible. Read more

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EDI as a Service: Understanding the Concepts

What is EDI “as a Service”? At Namtek Consulting Services, we have been providing a service called EDI2XML Translation Service. As many already know, EDI requires expertise and knowledge in the field; not any IT professional can handle a full EDI project. This often makes it difficult when businesses are told by suppliers or retailers […]

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